Edges of Southeast Asia Second Edition

The Philippines is among the most disaster-prone countries in the world, with 60% of its land and 74% of its population vulnerable to natural hazards such as floods, cyclones, droughts, earthquakes, tsunamis, and landslides. One of the worst disasters occurred in 2013 – Typhoon Haiyan. When Typhoon Haiyan made landfall, it overwhelmed the government response with only 23% of local governments in flood prone areas sufficiently resourced to respond. At the time, Myles Delfin saw the potential for ordinary citizens with bicycles to make an impact. They could go where roads were inaccessible and deliver necessary supplies, information, and communication. He posted on Facebook, seeking volunteer cyclists to join the disaster response. Within a few hours, 200 volunteers signed up, leading to the formation of the first Bike Scouts community.

Social media plays a pivotal role in mobilising citizens to become community responders. With 95% of internet users in the Philippines on Facebook, Bike Scouts leverages this platform to raise awareness and manage community operations. Recognising the untapped potential of local residents, who best understand community needs, Bike Scouts collaborated with local cycling groups to train volunteers to become first responders.

Bike Scouts is launching an app, SuperScout, to expand its good work beyond Facebook. Founded on the belief that people inherently want to do good, Bike Scouts taps into our latent potential to contribute to our communities. Over the past decade, more than 100,000 individuals have joined the Bike Scouts community, helping over 700,000 residents in the Philippines and beyond.

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The Philippines is grappling with a severe housing shortage, driven by rapid population growth and urbanisation. In 2022, the country faced a shortfall of 6.5 million homes, requiring a 23% increase in housing stock to meet the demand. 30% of the population lives in informal settlements with inadequate water, sanitation, energy, and waste management.

BillionBricks has developed an ingenious financing solution to leverage solar panels to enable even low-income families to afford their own self-financing, net-zero homes. These solar-powered homes are designed for people, the planet, and profit. By integrating solar panels into the roofs, BillionBricks provides families with free electricity and allows them to sell excess electricity back to the grid, turning their homes into sustainable income streams that finance 15-20% of their mortgages. Furthermore, these net-zero homes maintain site drainage, treat their own sewage, and provide spaces for growing food. Designed with vulnerable families in mind, these houses are both affordable and durable, and are resilient to earthquakes and typhoons.

BillionBricks is currently developing several pilot projects in cities across the Philippines, laying the groundwork for the first large-scale BillionBricks community in the country. This community will encompass over 1,300 homes with a solar capacity of 10.4 megawatt peak energy, offsetting more than 6,160 tonnes of CO2 emissions annually. This is equivalent to planting 191,000 trees.

BillionBricks’ approach combines social impact, environmental stewardship, and financial viability, leveraging sunlight and unused roof surfaces to address two of the world’s most pressing issues: affordable housing and climate change.

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Over 70% of Southeast Asia’s population is unbanked or underbanked, with a chronic lack of financial literacy and trust in financial products. They often turn to friends and relatives for financial advice.

MFast was founded on the premise that community relationships were an untapped resource in the distribution of financial products to underserved communities. Focusing on Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities in Vietnam, they built a network of sales agents who help educate consumers about the financial services most suited to them, including bank accounts, loans, credit cards, and insurance from various financial services providers. Each sales agent has access to their network of family and friends, growing the pool of potential customers.

MFast’s exponential growth can be attributed to a profound understanding of human behaviour, complemented with straightforward technology. Through the MFast app, after completing in-app training, agents can engage with their networks to facilitate sales. Upon obtaining client consent, agents input the consumer’s details into the app. The MFast team and relevant financial institutions then follow-up with the customer to finalise the sign-up process. Agents earn a commission for each sale. Three quarters of agents are part-time, with the average MFast agent earning US$200 per month. The platform is providing new income streams, particularly among students and recent graduates, and opens up financial career opportunities for everyone.

Today, 367,000 MFast agents serve more than 2.6 million consumers across Vietnam. MFast recently launched in the Philippines, as the firm works to drive financial inclusion for the unbanked and underbanked populations across Southeast Asia

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SuperFreeze, a provider of cold storage warehousing and logistics, is revolutionising how we cool things down. In Singapore, 95% of electricity comes from liquified natural gas (LNG). Generating electricity from LNG requires warming LNG back to natural gas from temperatures of -162°C to 15°C. This is an expensive and carbon-intensive process that releases large amounts of cooling potential, or "cold energy", as waste.

Instead of wasting cold energy, SuperFreeze patented a process to regasify LNG and recycle cold energy for cooling warehouses to frozen, ultra cold (less than -20 °C) and cryogenic temperatures (-72°C to -60°C). This is used in South Korea and is now being implemented in Singapore. Tapping into the dormant utility of cold energy enable SuperFreeze to reduce the electricity consumption of its cold facilities by 75%, with no marginal carbon emissions.

Beyond cost and carbon, SuperFreeze’s ultra-cold capabilities offer competitive services for food and pharmaceuticals. Traditional warehouses relying on electricity cannot provide ultra-low temperatures at scale or competitive prices. During the COVID-19 pandemic, SuperFreeze’s warehouses emerged as the optimal storage solution for COVID-19 vaccines, especially those that needed to be kept at -80 °C to -30 °C. SuperFreeze’s warehouses continue to store most of South Korea’s COVID-19 vaccines.

Aiming to become Asia’s largest cold chain provider, SuperFreeze is expanding to ports and logistic hubs across Southeast Asia. This innovative approach to harness the potential of waste has optimised resources, enhanced energy efficiency, and reduced carbon emissions in the cold chain.

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Global warming is nearing a critical tipping point, and the fashion industry is a significantcontributor. It is responsible for about 6-8% of total global carbon emissions, amounting to 1.7 billion tonnes annually. Alarmingly, these emissions are projected to increase by over 50% by 2030.

Xinterra is on a mission to turn every human being into a carbon capture agent through the clothes we wear. They have formulated a new liquid, COzTERRA, and invented a process to turn textiles into CO2 absorbing agents.

COzTERRA is a discovery of Xinterra Design Factory™ (XDF), which uses AI to increase the rate of discovery of materials by 10x. Upon exposure to air, COzTERRA absorbs CO2. The captured carbon combines with common household detergent in the wash and is released as harmless minerals. The washed fabric is now ready to capture carbon again. A scalable solution for manufacturers to integrate into textile production and a simple solution for consumers to adapt.

A T-shirt treated with COzTERRA can capture between 16 and 41 grams of CO2 while active – approximately 20 washes. On a larger scale, if a medium-sized textile company were to adopt this technology, they could produce 8 million T-shirts which can absorb up to 328,000 kg of CO2. This is comparable to the annual CO2 absorption of 15,000 trees.

COzTERRA is just the start of what XDF can do. The firm reduced the time for new formulation discovery from the industry standard of 5 years to 11 months using AI. It aims to discover another 100 materials or formulations in the next 10 years. With the advent of better materials, this could accelerate the world towards a more sustainable future.

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How can banks achieve higher repayment rates without charging high interest? One startup is appealing to people’s moral and religious sensibilities.

Hijra, an Indonesian FinTech startup, is disrupting the field of social finance with its Shariah-compliant financing products by relying on non-punitive, non-interest based financing mechanisms. In Southeast Asia, Islam is the most widely practiced religion, with Muslims constituting 40% of the region's inhabitants. However, Shariah law prohibits interest (riba) which it deems exploitative, while prescribing that transactions be asset-backed. Indonesia’s young Muslim population, averaging 23 years old, makes for fertile innovation at the intersection of Islamic finance and technology.

Hijra achieves an impressive 99.7% repayment rate on its Shariah-compliant financing. This has helped Hijra to grow rapidly into the largest Sharia-compliant FinTech startup within the US$2.2 trillion Islamic finance market.

Beyond the Muslim population, Islamic finance offers consumers a choice to park their money in firms which do not invest in alcohol, gambling, and other activities deemed unethical by Shariah law. Hijra operates inclusively, serving non-Muslim customers on its deposit products and financing products. By adhering to inclusive Islamic finance principles, Hijra ensures its services are accessible to all, regardless of religious background. This demonstrates the broad potential and ethical appeal of Islamic and social finance models, more broadly, recentring on human morals to expand market access.

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Jollibee Group is one of the world’s largest and fastest-growing restaurant companies. With 6,900 stores in 32 countries globally across its 18 brands, its mission is to bring the joy of eating to everyone.

As the COVID-19 pandemic ravaged the food and beverage sector, Jollibee had to adapt to a rapidly changing environment. Its approach? An Agile Transformation aimed at putting joy at the centre of work and redefining how Jollibee Group delivers value and joy to its customers and employees.

A key pillar of its transformation is the formation of grassroots mission teams. These cross-functional, self-organised groups operate in sprints, using a test-learn-iterate approach to address organisational challenges. Employing a bottom-up approach, these teams empower Jollibee Group’s employees to propose projects that further the company’s mission, thereby encouraging them to develop new capabilities. Mission teams also provide Jollibee Group with market-ready prototypes that the organisation can test and scale.

Since the start of its transformation, Jollibee Group has initiated over 30 business missions, yielding over 100 prototypes led by over 194 talents across the world. With joy at the centre of their transformation, Jollibee Group’s Agile Transformation created a movement within the organisation armed with enhanced readiness for disruption. The transformation contributed to a record turnaround – from a first-time loss in 2020 to two consecutive best-ever years for Jollibee Group – and a slew of accolades including recognition by Gallup, TIME Magazine and Forbes.

Jollibee’s Agile Transformation demonstrates how, with a powerful mission and a dedication to centring your people on joy, even the most challenging crises can become opportunities.

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Nusantara, Indonesia’s new capital, aspires to be both a liveable and loveable city. Inspired by the DesignSingapore Council's study on Loveable Singapore and expanded globally with the Deloitte Center for the Edge, the concept of a loveable city revolves around six human-centric aspects: inclusion, connection, attachment, stimulation, freedom, and agency. Although the city is slated for completion by 2045, the Nusantara Capital City Authority has already initiated several projects that embody these principles:

The "10-minute city" concept ensures residents can reach work or essential services within 10 minutes using mass transport, promoting freedom of movement, and stimulating smart city features.

Programmes like "Coding Mum" and "Coding Difabel" enhance inclusion by introducing programming skills to mothers and individuals with disabilities, opening new avenues for growth.

Nusantara aims to preserve 75% of the area as a production forest, with the potential to offer unique attractions like forest bathing, which reduces depression and enhances mental well-being.

Connection and community are fostered by integrating local wisdom and culture into daily life. The "Solar Mum" programme empowers communities to adopt renewable energy, providing them a sense of agency and participation in sustainable practices.

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Wellness is moving from niche to norm, with corporate wellness expanding from physical health to mental well-being. The next shift is to spiritual well-being, fuelled by younger generations’ emphasis on purpose. 89% of millennials and 86% of Gen Zs find a sense of purpose essential for job satisfaction and well-being.

Tsao Pao Chee (TPC) is an international shipping conglomerate led by Chavalit Frederick Tsao. Convinced of well-being’s importance, he expanded TPC’s core business into the well-being economy by establishing three arms: Octave Living, Octave Institute, and Octave Well-being Economy Fund. TPC’s corporate philanthropy includes three non-profits: OCTAVE Institute, No.17 Foundation, and Restore Nature Foundation, which focus on human relationships, collaboration, and nature respectively.

Octave Living’s flagship offering, Sangha Resort, is a six-star holistic well-being community that blends ancient healing practices with modern medicine. TPC extends its wellness commitment to employees, offering well-being services and mindful retreats. Over 800 TPC employees have benefited, with nearly 500 completing an eight-day mindful living retreat.

With Octave Living’s success, TPC now helps other corporations support their employees. The Octave Institute offers organisational development, consultancy, and leadership transformation through mindful living and learning. Finally, the Octave Well-being Economy Fund has invested US$320 million in companies aligned with their well-being mandate.

By recentring on human needs, TPC has built a well-being ecosystem that creates wealth while doing good.

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Sari-saris (mom-and-pop stores) are at the centre of the Philippines’ grassroots economy. The country’s 1.3 million sari-saris accounted for 41% of national Fast-Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) sales in 2022 and over 90% of its micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs). However, each store purchases an average of only around PHP500 (around US$40) of inventory, limiting their bargaining power with distributors.

Growsari is a B2B ordering and store solution platform that provides the infrastructure for sari-sari store owners to grow their businesses. By consolidating a suite of products and services, Growsari connects suppliers, service providers, and sari-sari stores.

Due to its focus on players overlooked due to their small size, Growsari was also able to unveil new business units around shared infrastructure, namely Sarimart and Saripay. These services were part of Growsari’s expanded vision to transform sari-saris from simple FMCG outlets to comprehensive service hubs for the nation's communities.

Through Sarimart, sari-sari stores can double their earnings through accessing almost 1,000 products from 85 FMCG brands and free delivery right to their doorsteps. On the other hand, Saripay, an independent financial services company, provides support to MSMEs with working capital loans, cash management, remittances, and similar products. Growsari also offers different e-services through eNegosyo, such as top-ups to various e-wallets and prepaid phone services, as well as bill settlement.

Growsari’s business model unlocks the market power of over 100,000 sari-saris to benefit everyone in the ecosystem – FMCGs, Growsari, end-customers, telcos, and other vendors.

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As the son of a doorman and having worked across Indonesia, Jaspal Sidhu recognised the need for affordable schools in a country consistently ranked at the bottom 10% of OECD’s PISA rankings of global education systems.

Jaspal's experience as a businessman allowed him to recognise the power of enterprise to achieve scale, quality, and sustained impact. He pioneered the 'Half-Fee' model, reducing school fees by half from the average of top-tier institutions with each new school launched in a new city to broaden access. To ensure no school within the network operates in isolation, Jaspal conceived a collaborative ecosystem powered by technology. In 2019, the World Bank (IFC) and Financial Times (UK) acknowledged his transformative work with a global award. Today, his group operates 15 campuses under the SIS’ brand in Indonesia, India, and Myanmar, each impacting nearly 3,000 individuals.

Determined to further reduce fees, Jaspal launched ‘Inspirasi’ in 2024, a brand for emerging cities in Indonesia. Fees are set at no more than US$2,000, and the schools employ teachers from local communities. With Deloitte, he created a unique playbook for hiring and training teachers, incorporating modern HR practices from outside the education industry. A key insight from this partnership was the mantra "Hire for Attitude and Train for Skills".

Inspirasi drives social equity by delivering quality education to emerging cities, empowering local teachers through innovative training, fostering vibrant communities, and unlocking every child's limitless potential, transforming lives and futures.

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While rice remains a staple for more than half the world’s population, its margins are low for the over 4.3 million Thai households involved in rice cultivation. White rice is also high in sugar, and each daily serving correlates with an 11% higher chance of developing type 2 diabetes.

Enter Jasberry rice, the grain from Jasberry Co., Ltd., which is both nutritious for consumers and uplifts the lives of farmers growing it. Jasberry rice is a superfood crossbred through 12 years of research, boasting over 40 times the antioxidants of brown rice and four times the antioxidants in quinoa.

To uplift farmers, Jasberry Co., Ltd. provides rice cooperatives with Jasberry seeds and teaches them organic farming practices. As Jasberry rice is 25% less water-intensive than normal rice, operational costs are reduced. Furthermore, microloans, facilitated through a partnership with online lending platform Kiva, support farmers in procuring organic fertilizers and diversifying into livestock, yielding up to 30% profit within a year.

Following the harvest, Jasberry farmers keep 25% for personal consumption so their families can have better health. Jasberry Co., Ltd. then purchases the rest at up to 200% more than the rate for conventional rice. These grains are packaged and redistributed through its 1,600 channels, with the largest market in the US where the organic food market is valued at US$173 billion.

By tapping into demand for healthier food, Jasberry creates a sustainable market to achieve its social mission, with a remarkable 14 times increase in daily pay for its farmers from US$0.40 to US$5.80.

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The world faces a severe plastic pollution crisis, especially in Southeast Asia, where 11.7 million metric tonnes of plastic waste is produced annually. Clean-ups, though well-intentioned, cannot match the pace of plastic pollution, which is expected to double through 2050.

To address this, PCX encourages responsible plastic waste management by leveraging market mechanisms. PCX Markets is a marketplace for funding projects that divert and responsibly process plastic that would otherwise end up in the natural environment.

PCX helps plastic producers kickstart their plastic responsibility strategy by auditing their plastic footprint to inform the volume of plastic waste recovery they should support. On the supply side, projects which divert plastic from the natural environment can apply to be listed. PCX screens for projects that go beyond cleanups to process waste through recycling, upcycling, or energy recovery, ensuring plastic does not end up in nature or unmanaged landfills. Project impact is audited by independent verification bodies, which then issue plastic credit certificates. Projects set the price of their credits based on costs.

Companies purchase credits to mitigate plastic pollution and build processing capacity, with each credit representing the diversion of one tonne of plastic waste from nature. Through PCX Markets, 100 million kilograms of plastic have been diverted across 11 countries.

One of PCX’s project partners is Aling Tindera, a community waste-to-cash initiative that has recovered approximately 4 million kilograms of plastic. This programme empowers women micro-entrepreneurs to collect post-consumer plastic waste. In sorting and selling plastic, these women experience an average monthly income increase of 48%.

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Modern agriculture has degraded about 75% of Earth's land areas due to industrial farming practices. For example, monocropping – the practice of planting the same crop repeatedly on a piece of land – depletes nutrients, necessitates extensive pesticide and fertilizer use, and replaces diverse ecosystems. This results in an estimated 60% decline in vertebrate species richness compared to natural forests.

And yet, this does not have to be. Regenerative farms can be 78% more profitable than conventional farms, despite being 29% less productive on average, due to lower agricultural inputs and higher selling prices. Imagine a commercial farm that is as lush and regenerative as a rainforest, thriving above the surface and rehabilitating soil fertility deep underground without pesticides, irrigation, or fertilisers.

This concept is a reality at A Little Wild (ALW), Southeast Asia’s first commercial Syntropic Agroforestry farm. Since 2020, the team has transformed 10% of a 138-acre oil palm plantation with encouraging results – restored plots have captured double the carbon compared to areas planted in oil palm.

ALW integrates syntropic agroforestry, planting diverse trees to mimic natural forest layers; regenerative agriculture, improving soil health using natural methods such as covering soil with organic matter; and permaculture, which is a design methodology to create closed-loop systems for resilience and self-sufficiency. These practices merge indigenous knowledge with scientific rigor, enhancing farming techniques despite climate challenges.

Moreover, ALW is transforming into a fruit forest that supports local communities. Partnering with the Global Peace Foundation, it helps the Orang Asli community in Rompin District, Malaysia shift from monoculture to diversified, resilient agriculture, improving food security and empowering sustainable development.

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Fast fashion has been a major driver of textile waste, creating a culture of overconsumption and overproduction. In contrast, designer womenswear label GINLEE embraces ‘slow fashion’ and ‘Making Fashion That Matters’. Initiatives like the Get Order on Demand (G.O.O.D) programme and _///\ake experience aim to push for the fashion industry to ‘slow down’.

Slow, circular fashion is fast catching on. 45% of millennials and Gen Z say they refuse to buy from non-sustainable brands and retailers. The secondhand market is expected to be 2x larger than fast fashion by 2030.

GINLEE also offers a unique _///\ake experience, which allows customers to customise merchandise on demand in store. Templatised products are sourced locally and in small batches to minimise waste. These are then pleated and coloured based on consumer preferences, either by the staff or by the customers themselves. This experience enhances consumer attachment to the products, promoting intentional purchases over impulse buying, and reducing the likelihood of early disposal.

GINLEE also extends product life through repair services and repurposes other products at the end of their life cycles. At their workshop studio MAKE O, they reduce waste going to landfills by reusing off-cuts and adopting repair and upcycling techniques. The Tee-tO-Bag initiative, a flagship project under MAKE O, repurposes discarded t-shirts into stylish bags, extending the life of materials that would otherwise contribute to landfill waste. Such initiatives question the norms of fast fashion culture, challenging us to rethink our relationship with the clothing we wear.

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The hospitality industry is a big waste generator, producing more than 1kg of waste per guest daily.Bali’s Potato Head resort stands out through its commitment to regeneration. The resort has cut landfill waste within its compound from 50% of total waste to less than 3% by recycling, composting, and upcycling. In its boutique, the Circle Store, Potato Head sells products like caps made from recycled cotton and off-cuts from Indonesian garment factories. Much of its furniture and amenities are made from upcycled waste collected from the resort.

One resort’s commitment is not enough – in Bali, 1.6 million tonnes of waste is produced yearly, 303,000 tonnes of which is plastic. Potato Head is leading the change by building the first Collective Waste Centre (Wasted Suwung). With this shared facility, other Bali resorts benefit from Potato Head’s zero-waste expertise and can turn their trash into treasure.

In the spirit of regeneration, Potato Head goes beyond reducing harm by uplifting surrounding communities. The resort supports local farmers by buying organic rice directly. This eliminates the need for intermediaries, so that profits can go straight to the farmers. Guaranteed purchases give farmers a stable income, enabling land ownership and sustainable farming practices. Potato Head ensures that most of these benefits go directly to the local community as 99% of their suppliers are Indonesian, of which approximately 70% are Balinese.

In the past 6 years, Potato Head has attracted over 2 million visitors, attained the B Corp certification for meeting high standards of social and environmental impact, and earned the distinction of being the only Balinese hotel listed among the World’s 50 Best Hotels.

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Keith Tan, the owner of Crown Coffee, faced a common challenge in the F&B industry. Despite having a high-tech coffee machine and high-quality Buscaglione coffee beans from Italy – he lacked one crucial ingredient, manpower. With no prior experience in robotics, Keith transformed his traditional café into a vertically-integrated, full-stack robotics and AI company. This journey started when he experimented with programming a collaborative robot that could handle tasks like picking up a chocolate croissant. Further tinkering led to the development of Ella, a robot barista.

Crown Coffee was then transformed into Crown Digital, with Ella being able to serve up to 200 cups of coffee per hour – quadrupling the output of a typical human barista. This is done without compromising on quality or affordability – a latte by Ella is priced at around US$3.50, compared to US$5 at typical cafés. More than just a robotic arm, Ella is part of an integrated ecosystem featuring a mobile app, payment gateway, e-wallet, AI-enabled vision system for operational monitoring, and advanced analytics for supply chain optimisation.

Crown Digital's commitment to innovation has led to numerous updates to Ella, with six version upgrades in five years. Since Version 3, Crown Digital's modular design allows new capabilities to be added instantly. The latest addition, through a partnership with Hong Kong’s Wada Foodtech, is a freshly cooked hot bento system, the first of its kind globally. Now, Ella has served 500,000 cups of coffee at hospitals, an airport, subway stations, and corporate offices. Keith’s journey from a traditional café owner to a tech company owner highlights the power of tinkering, experimenting, and building to remain at the forefront.

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Gibran Hufaizah's path to establishing the world's first aquaculture unicorn valued at US$1.4 billion, eFishery, started at the Bandung Institute of Technology. From an aquaculture class, he was inspired by the industry’s potential and rented a pond to farm catfish. This first-hand experience as a catfish farmer gave him valuable insights into the industry. He discovered that profits were meagre due to high feeding costs (feed accounts for 70% to 90% of total costs), improper feeding practices (hand feeding led to under- and overfeeding), and a poor grasp of feeding time. To address this, he created the eFeeder, an IoT device that ensures optimal feed amounts and timing. This increased feed efficiency by up to 30% and saw farmers’ income increase by up to 45%.

Hufaizah did not stop at the eFeeder. His understanding of the industry helped him recognize other challenges, such as excessive middleman fees and financial inaccessibility. He expanded eFishery’s offerings through eFisheryKu and eFarm. These platforms sell feeds and connect fish and shrimp farmers, respectively, with B2B buyers to cut out the costs of middlemen. Additionally, eFishery’s Kabayan offers a credit scheme to purchase feed and fish for business expansion. These other business offerings are now significant contributors to this aquaculture unicorn that made US$266 million in revenue in 2022.

eFishery is set to boost productivity in Indonesia’s aquaculture sector, supporting the country’s ambitious goal to export US$7.2 billion worth of fishery products by the end of 2024. This impressive success began with a founder whose first-hand experience as a catfish farmer enabled him to make a big splash in a market he understood intuitively.

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The world’s cities are growing fast. Today, 56% of the world's population – 4.4 billion people – live in cities, and this number is expected to double by 2050. As urban populations boom, we need new solutions to move people efficiently. Imagine a future where mobility is seamless, sustainable, and designed by the communities it serves. The Toyota Mobility Foundation (TMF) is making that vision a reality. It empowers local communities to design sustainable mobility solutions. TMF collaborates with local talent – residents, governments, and businesses – to create solutions that address local needs.

SMART @Ubud is a shining example. Co-developed with Deloitte Future of Mobility Solution Centre, TMF’s fully-funded Sustainable Mobility Advancing Real Transformation (SMART) programme developed mobility solutions and sustainable business models for the local context. TMF established relationships with the community to understand its mobility issues. It then deployed app-based electrified vehicle (xEV) shuttle services and real-time bus schedule displays, iteratively developing processes which resolved issues as they arose.

Over nine months, the trial served 20,000 customers, achieving improved customer satisfaction with an average rating of 4.8 out of 5.0. The programme reduced congestion by removing 7,000 vehicles from Ubud’s roads, cutting approximately 51 tonnes of CO2 emissions annually. An 80% increase in the willingness to use public transport was also achieved due to bus schedule displays.

TMF empowers communities by engaging with them for capacity building, sharing learnings, building capabilities, and leaving a legacy, enabling Ubud to chart its own course towards a greener future. This exemplifies the power of collaboration: communities becoming architects of their own sustainable mobility revolutions.

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As AI reshapes the world, countries are racing to lead the AI revolution. Bridging the gap between research and real-world application remains a formidable challenge. One Southeast Asian AI R&D lab is making headway on this front. Founded in 2019 as a subsidiary of VinGroup, VinAI has rapidly risen to global prominence.

Thundermark Capital ranked VinAI among the top 20 AI R&D labs worldwide, as the only Southeast Asian firm to rank so highly. The firm has published over 160 research papers, filed 69 patents, and nurtured AI talents through its residency programme.

VinAI, strategically positioned in Vietnam and Southeast Asia, is playing an active role in this transformation, creating technologies for the safe and responsible use of AI. In smart mobility, VinAI’s products are enhancing driver safety, comfort, and convenience. Inventions such as InteriorSense can monitor the driver to ensure their attention remains on the road, while MirrorSense automatically adjusts car mirrors based on eye position, helping VinAI win the 2024 CES innovation award.

In the field of Generative AI, VinAI has developed solutions that make generative AI accessible, efficient, and reliable for everyone. Examples include PhoGPT (the first open-source Large Language Model designed for nuances in the Vietnamese language), a private AI-powered enterprise search, and many more.

By translating cutting-edge AI research into practical solutions, VinAI is setting new standards for the industry.

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Can a 170-year-old bank maintain its innovative edge and transform its business model from within?

audax began as an idea by intrapreneur Kelvin Tan at Standard Chartered (SC) to grow its retail and SME segments without heavy investment in physical infrastructure. Recognising that over 70% of Southeast Asia's population is unbanked yet actively transacts online, he built SC nexus, a white-label plug-and-play Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) offering incubated at SC Ventures, the Bank’s innovation, fintech investment and ventures arm. Later, SC Ventures launched audax, with Kelvin as CEO.

audax offers a plug-and-play digital banking platform with modularised capabilities for digital banking, BaaS, and modernisation of existing infrastructure, reducing launch time from 3-5 years to 6-9 months. One example is BukaTabungan, a digital banking service in Indonesia. audax powered SC’s partnership with commerce company Bukalapak to provide digital banking to Bukalapak’s ecosystem of more than 110 million users and 20 million business owners. This partnership tripled SC’s customer base in Indonesia within six months at a fraction of the original acquisition costs, with 98% of BukaTabungan’s customers being first-time users of SC services.

This idea not only spun off a successful venture but also digitally transformed the bank from within. And it all started with intrapreneur Kelvin’s observation of what was happening on the edges.

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The National University Health System (NUHS) is an academic health system of the future. Its flagship hospital, the National University Hospital, is the first hospital with a Hybrid Enterprise-Grade 5G network in Asia Pacific. NUHS has its own locally-trained Large Language Model, houses the first supercomputer in Singapore’s healthcare sector, and is a global pioneer in Holomedicine as one of three Holomedicine Centres of Excellence worldwide.

More important is the impact of these technologies. Like Minority Report's “Precrime” police, NUHS uses its supercomputer, “PreScience,” to predict patient health trajectories and recommend interventions before conditions deteriorate. At the touch of a button, doctors can access diagnosis recommendations, summarise patients’ case notes, and write referral letters. This not only improves diagnosis quality; doctors can focus on patient care.

As part of the Holomedicine Programme, NUHS surgeons across nine specialties can use mixed-reality headsets and AI-rendered 3D scans to conduct surgeries with near pinpoint precision, even visualising tumours invisible to the naked eye. This reduces potential complications and risk, as well as operation and recovery times. The next frontier is digital twins: virtual 3D anatomical and functional replicas of patients’ internal organs, personalised with their specific biomechanical data. This is used to precisely predict healthcare outcomes.

NUHS’ progress is the result of collaboration across different workstreams, powered by a 50-member strong tech team comprising surgeons, data scientists, network architects, and other diverse tech talents. The team constantly tinkers with a range of technologies, but what ultimately sets them apart is their willingness to experiment in a traditionally risk-averse industry. Their mission? To make medicine predictive, precise, and personalised.

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80% of the world’s poor live in rural areas, mainly relying on farming for their livelihood. Without income statements and collateral, smallholder farmers are often ineligible for bank loans, preventing them from obtaining useful tools and technologies.

Ricult has developed an innovative solution using satellite imaging to help banks assess farmers’ creditworthiness, facilitating over US$1 million in loans. Their AI-based Crop Scan uses deep learning to analyse satellite imagery of farmers’ holdings. The model generates detailed profiles of the farmland, including information on crop types, growth stages, and estimated harvests, to determine credit risk. This credit score allows banks to make informed lending decisions, enabling farmers to access the loans they need. Additionally, Ricult uses farm data to predict farmers' financial needs, allowing banks to design products better suited to farming cycles, in turn creating greater financial access for farmers.

The Ricult Farmer app provides smallholder farmers with free access to localised weather data, farm advisory, and farm health monitoring via satellite imagery. As a result, farmers can time their planting, fertilising, and harvesting to maximise agricultural productivity. Ricult also connects farmers with mills and input companies, earning commissions from loans and offtake agreements to sustain their business model.

With over 800,000 downloads, Ricult has been a game-changer for farmers and agricultural stakeholders in Thailand. By using technology to address a gap in information, Ricult has created a win-win situation for banks and farmers.

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What do Nasi Lemak and artisan cafes have to do with urban development? Plenty, according to UrbanMetry.

Developing cities in Southeast Asia offer immense opportunities, but can also come with significant challenges. Government capacity gaps in the region make it difficult to obtain reliable data across the region's diverse cultural and physical landscapes, stymying investment in the region.

That's where UrbanMetry comes in. Founded in Malaysia, UrbanMetry uses novel indicators to track urban lifestyle patterns, unlocking opportunity for real estate investors. Take the Nasi Lemak Map, for example. Generated using analysis of geospatial data, it reveals deeper insights into the distribution of halal and non-halal eateries, mirroring the ethnic and cultural landscapes of Greater Kuala Lumpur. Similarly, the Cafe Index tracks artisan coffee shops to provide another datapoint for investors.

Its groundbreaking climate risk assessment project exemplifies the transformative impact of data. By mapping areas across Malaysia prone to landslides and floods, and overlaying this with mortgage data, they provide a comprehensive risk evaluation for properties. This aids banks in stress testing and sustainability planning, offering detailed insights with their 2030 sea level rise risk map. This project not only identifies potential hazards but also guides future urban planning and disaster mitigation. This is just one way UrbanMetry is building more resilient cities.

Beyond assisting property developers, governments, and banks, UrbanMetry aspires to empower end-consumers to make better-informed choices. Their work paves the way for smarter, more inclusive cities, demonstrating the profound impact of innovative data analytics on urban planning and housing affordability.

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